Geronimo!

Rudy Ramos is glad to be home and share his one-man show with family and friends

Hot Ticket: Rudy Ramos’ ‘Geronimo’ Almost Sold Out

By Charles Clark

Fewer than a dozen seats remain available for “Geronimo, Life on the Reservation” playing Saturday at Lawton’s John Denney Playhouse.

Ginny O’Leary is producing the stage show featuring Rudy Ramos in his one-man show.

Ramos, a stage, television and film actor in Los Angeles, organized the production a year ago and toured the show in several states. A Lawton native and former basketball standout at Cameron University, Ramos’s show came to Lawton last year for a sold out performance. The waiting list was enough for a second sell out, but Ramos was already booked in other cities and could not stage another local one. He promised to return as soon as possible to his home town, and he has.

Ramos said on Friday that he is willing to add a Sunday matinee if the waiting list grows to 100.

Courtesy Photos

“I have done this show now 15 times. I love doing it and it just keeps getting better,” he said.

In another recent conversation, Ramos, said he spent much of his youth in Anadarko.

“Every summer, I would spend several weeks there running the streets with my cousins. I had lots of friends there and still have some,” he said, adding that it would be great to see them after the show.

Ramos had inquired about a performance in Anadarko on this tour, but had to pass when he could not locate a professional stage that met the lighting and sound requirements of the production.

The show premiered in Tucson, Ariz. last year and has played as far east as the Memphis Film Festival in Memphis, Tenn. Ramos just concluded shows in Fort Worth, Texas, where it was enthusiastically received. He is already in Lawton making preparations and visiting family.

Lights will go up on “Geronimo, Life on the Reservation” at 8 p.m. Saturday April 25 at the John Denney Playhouse, 1316 NW Bell Ave. in Lawton. For ticket information, call Lawton Community Theatre, (580) 355-1600.

The show is being produced locally by Ginny O’Leary. Ramos launched the original efforts through a “Kickstarter” campaign online. The script was written by Janelle Meraz Hooper.

“This is not a kids’ show,” said Ramos. “It gets pretty intense.” For that reason, producers recommend no one age 10 or under attend. The story covers the last 20 years of Geronimo’s life, spent as a prisoner of war on the Fort Sill Indian Reservation.

“… To my knowledge, no one has ever played Geronimo at this age when he was a POW. I am honored to play him and to give him his long overdue voice,” Ramos is quoted as saying when the show first hit the road.

Ramos said in an earlier conversation from his Los Angeles home that there are parts when the audience laughs and parts when they cry. “People always come up to me after a show and say they learned something they did not know before.”

Ramos had a kick start at the beginning of his own career, four decades ago, when he was cast in the role of Wind, a half-Pawnee ranch hand on the hit TV series “The High Chaparral.” He went on to other TV appearances, “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman”, “George Lopez”. “NYPD Blue”, “Murder She Wrote”, “MacGyver” and the TV movie “Helter Skelter” among them. He also garnered film roles, including “Colors” with Robert Duvall and Sean Penn, “The Enforcer” with Clint Eastwood and “Beverly Hills Cop II” with Eddy Murphy.

Ramos said he has been on the road for two months. The tour will conclude after this weekend.

“I’m going home to get some rest and catch up on things, then, since the first one did so well, I am considering another run of the show in Los Angeles,” he said.